Coaches build from ground up

Coach Leigh Marshall has elevated the Palomar College women’s basketball team from a winless squad in her first season in 2010-11 to a conference champion in the season that recently ended.

Coach Leigh Marshall has elevated the Palomar College women’s basketball team from a winless squad in her first season in 2010-11 to a conference champion in the season that recently ended. (Sean M. Haffey)

Coach Jim Saia guided Cal State San Marcos to the NAIA quarterfinals this season.

Coach Jim Saia guided Cal State San Marcos to the NAIA quarterfinals this season. (Charlie Neuman)

Jim Saia started the men’s basketball program at Cal State San Marcos from scratch.

When Leigh Marshall took over as women’s basketball coach at Palomar College, the program was below scratch — far below.

This season, Saia was named the NAIA Men’s Coach of the Year by the Basketball Times after leading the Cougars to a 30-4 record and the NAIA tournament quarterfinals.

Marshall was named state coach of the year by the California Community Women’s Basketball Coaches Association. She led the Comets to a 26-4 season that ended with a loss in the Southern California championship game.

For both coaches, the road to these awards was circuitous.

Cal State San Marcos started its men’s and women’s basketball programs with a beautiful field house, but the gym has just a half court and one basket.

Practices are at Corky Smith Gym, a municipal facility a mile away from campus. The Cougars share it with youth programs and recreation leagues.

Games are played at

MiraCosta College, 10 miles from campus, where the team shares the facility with the MiraCosta men’s and women’s teams.

“I thought I knew what I was getting into when I took the job, but it hasn’t been easy,” said Saia, who was the interim head coach at USC for one season and an assistant at UCLA for a decade.

“We only had six scholarships when I started. But we’ve done it right — 22 of our last 27 players will graduate, and there have been no issues off the floor.”

An up-tempo team, the Cougars averaged 85.3 points a game and shot 47 percent from the field.

“Really, our success is a tribute to the players and to my assistant coaches, especially B.J. Foster the last two years,” Saia said.

“We didn’t have a thing when we got here. Our offices were in a trailer. We practice and play off campus.”

The office situation has been rectified, and ground has been broken on a 1,200-seat on-campus gym. Students living in the dorms will be able to walk to games.

“The city of San Marcos and the people at Corky Smith have been great to us,” Saia said. “And MiraCosta has gone out of its way to accommodate us.

“But it will be great to walk recruits to our facility. We have a great following, and the new gym will unite the school and the community.”

Cal State San Marcos starts its transition from the NAIA to NCAA Division II next season and will be a member of the Pac West Conference.

In a roundabout way, Marshall took over the Palomar program from Sheri Jennum, who left the Comets to start the Cal State San Marcos women’s program.

Jennum went 74-17 in three years at Palomar and had a 33-game winning streak, but administrators dragged their feet on a replacement when she left.

So returning players left the program, and no recruiting occurred.

Longtime El Camino High boys coach Ray Johnson was hired as the head coach but quickly left when he saw what was happening.

Marshall, a star player at Orange Coast College, was the head girls coach at El Modena High.

With no players, she was forced to set up a booth on the Palomar campus and signed up soccer and softball players to field a team. That group went 0-20.

“I somewhat knew the situation, but I was shocked there weren’t any returnees,” Marshall said. “I had some success coaching, so I knew what had to be done, but that first season was ugly.”

The Comets won five games in Marshall’s second year, but “by the third year, we got it rolling and won a conference title.”

This season, Marshall’s fifth at Palomar, the Comets went 13-1 in the conference.

“When we talked with high school kids, it was like, ‘What’s junior college?’ ” Marshall said. “Now the high school girls recognize our program.

“We play a fun style — full-court pressure. We play a lot of girls, so it’s fun for everyone.”